One Year of COVID Gaming

The last year has been incredibly challenging for so many people in so many ways, and while my small little world hasn't been completely untouched by COVID-19, I’ve also been incredibly fortunate that things have mostly been OK. And I feel extremely thankful for that.

A strange silver lining of the pandemic has been that I have probably played more Dungeons and Dragons in the last year than I’ve ever played in my entire life. And I’ve played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. It looks like I’ve logged about 240 hours in the last year, which represents two different weekly games that normally run about 2 to 2-½ hours per session.

Evidently, I’m not alone based on a spate of recent media pieces like “Dungeons & Dragons had its biggest year ever as Covid forced the game off tables and onto the web.” It’s been a very sweet outlet, allowing me to see good friends and family a couple of times a week, and I hope we can continue playing well past the epidemic. Although a weekly game requires a decent amount of effort, I find the experience much more rewarding than a less frequent game. You establish a rhythm and momentum that just can’t be sustained even playing every other week.

I have certainly gained a much greater appreciation for 5th Edition, which is probably the strongest version of the game yet. I am still learning some surprisingly basic things: because the game is so streamlined and so similar to past editions, I have missed many important changes. I don’t know how long we played before I realized I didn’t understand how critical hits worked in 5e: you roll damage dice twice and add modifiers once, which is the opposite of how it’s done in 3e. Just a couple of weeks ago I realized that shield is now a reaction to cast. Shield! As basic a spell as you can get. (I think this is a great change, and makes the spell distinct from mage armor.)

I’ve also increased my proficiency with Roll20, which we use in conjunction with Zoom. Although I have some occasional frustrations with the platform, it has the benefit of being incredibly flexible and reasonably easy to use. My biggest wish would be for Roll20 to develop an integrated chat client that actually works for all of my players.

So here’s a roundup of my year of COVID gaming:

Out of the Abyss: This was the game that started it all. We played two face-to-face sessions in December of 2019 followed by single sessions in January and February. Our last in-person game concluded in dramatic fashion, with Demogorgon rising out of the Darklake. But on March 29, 2020 we pivoted to Roll20 for our ninth session—and at that point the characters were mostly 5th level. We’ve been playing ever since and the campaign is still going strong. There was a fairly steep learning curve and probably took us until September before the campaign really kicked into gear. We just completed our 46th session, with most characters at 11th level and the game is clearly moving into the final stages. At the current pace we should be wrapping up some time in June or July, and my great hope is that we’ll be able to finish this campaign out with an in-person game.

Age of Worms: We were able to pick up and complete an abandoned adventure path. Well worth the effort and one of the more satisfying parts of the year.

Into the Interface: My Roll20 Traveller game never did quite reach escape velocity and got crowded out by too much D&D goodness. I haven’t given up on it, and in fact was able to run a pretty strong session back in February. It’s on my 2021 to-do list.

Lost Mine of Phandelver: Probably 95% of my D&D experience has been on the DM side of the screen. One of the great pleasures of the last year has been the chance to participate as a player. One of my friends ran us through this excellent adventure, and I played a bard—which is a lot of fun in 5th edition. Although we completed the main story line, we went back to finish out a couple of side quests and got ourselves way, way over our heads. I’d never really lost a character I liked so much before. 

Curse of Strahd: The same friend offered to run us through this adventure, and I lept at the chance to play again. I’m not sure why, but everyone committed to playing character classes they hadn’t played before (or at least not in a while). My cleric of the Broken God, Brother Powell, has been a blast to run and so far the adventure has very much lived up to its reputation. I really find myself looking forward to this game each week. The PCs are all 8th level and we are preparing for our journey to dread Castle Ravenloft.

Blogging: My summers are usually pretty busy and so most of my blogging gets done in the winter months. I’ve been able to maintain a pretty good pace for posting, mostly focused on Traveller, and seem to be attracting readers. While I expect the pace to slacken with warm weather, I’m hoping to post more regularly this year than in summers past. 

Miniatures: I had genuinely thought that the pandemic would give me an opportunity to catch back up on my painting backlog, but I really haven’t made much progress. In part, I’ve just been too darned busy running and playing D&D and blogging about Traveller. But in part, without face-to-face games, I’ve got far less imperative to get these models painted.

Here’s hoping the COVID situation improves over the next year, and we all have many more opportunities to play face-to-face. While Roll20 has been great, there is just something about sitting down around the same table with good friends that I miss dearly!